Hunger Games Director Gary Ross May Tell Peter Pan's Origin Story

Much like how we now have two "Die Hard in the White House" movies in development - Antoine Fuqua's Olympus Has Fallen and Roland Emmerich's White House Down - both Sony and Disney are currently fighting to release their upcoming Peter Pan prequel first. Sony's, titled Neverland, has made quite a bit of progress since it was announced last year and has Channing Tatum set to star and reportedly Warrior director Gavin O'Connor is in the mix to direct. But Disney isn't slacking off either. Just a couple months ago the studio hired a writer to pen the adaptation of the 2004 children's novel Peter and the Starcatchers and now it seems they may have found the right man to direct it.

THR has learned that Gary Ross is now in talks to helm Disney's Peter Pan film. The novel was written by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson and follows a young Peter as he befriends a girl named Molly on the Never Land ship. Together they work to try and keep a "mysterious trunk filled with magical starstuff" away from the villainous pirate Black Stache (who later becomes Captain Hook). Should Ross sign on, it will be a project different from everything else he's done simply because he isn't writing the script - those duties fall to Jesse Wigutow (2003's It Runs in the Family). The director is also currently attached to The Secret Life of Houdini, a Harry Houdini biopic set up over at Summit Entertainment that recently hired one of the co-creators of Chuck to write the script.

It's interesting to see a filmmaker like Gary Ross have more than one project on his plate. While Ross has been working as a feature film director since 1998, he has only managed to make three films (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit and The Hunger Games). I suppose now that any of his titles can be advertised with the phrase "From The Director Of The Hunger Games" he has a bit more incentive to get out there are start making more movies.